FINALLY... after a four month long hibernation in a friend's basement... the black SVO rolled outside for it's first trip down the road since the end of last November. It's been a long road it seems like to get the car running but I think after some fine tuning it will be well worth the wait. We basically just got the car running and played with the fuel pressure a bit as it was late Sunday night when we got it running but overall it ran fairly well. Highlights of the evening would be the good:

No leaks of any kind to speak of
No noisy gear whine from blown 7.5 ring and pinion :D
Boost/Fuel Pressure guages worked/lighted up correctly
Fluidyne Radiator and Flex-a-lite fans worked like a champ... temp guage never got about 1/2 way mark
B-O-O-S-T... and lot's of it :D:D

And the bad :(

Absolutely no traction under boost into 3rd gear (wet pavement)
Air/Fuel Ratio guage not installed correctly, or not working at all
Slightly funky idle at start-up due to larger fuel injectors (46 lph)
Speedo way off... not sure due to wrong gear or due to misplacement of speedo needle
Header burnt hole in wastegate actuator... resulting in boost to rise to 25 psi :eek: :eek:

When we discovered the hole in the actuator hose... we wisely called it a night and slowly drove the SVO back home. Hopefully this weekend we'll get the actuator hose fixed and "heat resistant" and fine tune it a bit and see how it will really run. I hope to have the bugs worked out of it by the Drag Day so I'll be able to attend then.

resulting in boost to rise to 25 psi
Wow! I bet THAT came as quite the shock! :eek: :eek:

Glad to see it is "on the road". I hope it all goes well from here.

So this beastie has a turbo in it? Did you buy a kit? What do you think?

NO 5 OH

04-09-2003, 02:36 PM

Originally posted by Ken 01-Cobra
Wow! I bet THAT came as quite the shock! :eek: :eek:

Glad to see it is "on the road". I hope it all goes well from here.

So this beastie has a turbo in it? Did you buy a kit? What do you think?

Yeah... it did come quite as a shock. When you come close to pegging a 30 lb. Auto Meter boost guage it leaves a feeling not to be desired in your stomach ;) ;)

All 84-86 Mustang SVO's were 2.3L EFI Turbo straight from Ford. The stock turbo was a T3... but I upgraded it to a T3/TO4E hybrid turbo ( combines a T3 turbine with a T4 compressor). In this application all I did was buy a new turbo and wastegate actuator... I'm still working on my "custom" intercooler ;) I'll tell ya more about it later (getting ready to leave for work) but I'll be putting a Buick Grand National intercooler in the front of my Mustang :D:D